Desperation grows among Peru's earthquake survivors

Peru sends in army to quell looting

FRANK BAJAKAssociated Press Writer

Published Sunday, August 19, 2007

PISCO, Peru -- The government sent the army to stop looting fueled by rising desperation in earthquake-shattered Peru, where tens of thousands were without fresh water and shivering families huddled in makeshift shelters at the center of the devastation.

In a soccer stadium in the port city of Pisco, more than 500 people rushed a lone truck that ran out little packets of crackers, candy and toilet paper, screaming that they had not eaten and accusing rescue workers of keeping supplies for themselves.

As many as 80 percent of the people in quake-hit urban areas may not have access to clean water and many rural communities still have not been reached to assess the damage, said Dominic Nutt, part of an emergency assessment team in Peru for the aid agency Save the Children.

"The situation is probably worse than first imagined," Nutt said.

President Alan Garcia sent 1,000 troops to stop the looting. "We're going to establish order, regardless of what it costs," he said.

Destruction from Wednesday's magnitude-8 quake, which killed 510 people and injured at least 1,500, was centered in the cities of Ica and Pisco in Peru's southern desert, about 125 miles southeast of the capital of Lima.

Garcia said at least 80,000 people were affected in some way, mostly through the destruction or damage of homes.

At one end of a soccer field in Pisco, families who had lost everything huddled in a half dozen makeshift shelters made of cardboard and blankets held up by wooden poles.

"We don't have water. The tents have not arrived," said Maria Tataja, 38, who shared an open-fronted shelter with nine other people. She shivered in the ocean breeze.

Some people complained of price-gouging and said the cost of basic foods had doubled or tripled at the local market. Others arrived in Pisco's central square asking for canned milk and other goods but often left empty-handed.

Soldiers stood guard at supply depots and tried to ensure that aid trucks made it to their destinations.

Miguel Soto, a police officer standing guard in the Pisco stadium, said food donated by one Lima district had been raided on the traffic-clogged highway to Pisco. Many other food trucks simply weren't getting through, he said.

Bulldozers and dump trucks tried to clear the streets as people hunted for food. Motorcycle taxi driver Marco Coila said he had moved his family out of Pisco to a village where they had hoped to find more food.

"There is nothing to eat. There is a lot of looting going on," Coila said.

Rescuers continued to pull bodies from the rubble of the San Clemente church in downtown Pisco, where hundreds had gathered for Mass when the quake struck Wednesday.

But hopes of finding more survivors diminished.

The U.S. dispatched medical teams, two mobile clinics and two helicopters, along with $150,000 to buy emergency supplies.